Fifth-Gen Honda City to Feature Physical Buttons for AC

• Published On: 1 April 2020
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Honda has decided to do away with the touchscreen AC controls in its new vehicles.

Honda Cars, acting reverse to the current trend, has decided to do away with the touchscreen AC controls in all its new cars. The company will incorporate analogue controls in place of the hugely popular touchscreen controls, and the first glimpse of which could be seen in the fifth-gen Honda City. It has been learnt that the Japanese automaker will introduce physical buttons in the form of a dial for heating and air conditioning, similar to outgoing Jazz & City models. The fifth-gen Honda City is expected to launch by the end of this month in India.

Speaking to Autocar UK, the new Honda Jazz project leader Takeki Tanaka explained: “The reason is quite simple –we wanted to minimise driver disruption for operation, in particular, for the heater and air conditioning. We changed it from touchscreen to dial operation, as we received customer feedback that it was difficult to operate intuitively. You had to look at the screen to change the heater seating.Therefore, we changed it so one can operate it without looking, giving more confidence while driving.” If we look at the company's latest electric car, the interior cabin comes with five screens and a rotatory control for the automatic air conditioning system instead of touchscreen buttons.

According to Honda, it has taken this decision after the feedback received by its buyers. The existing customers were not too happy with the touchscreen AC controls and hence the company is returning to physical controls which is already quite popular in countries with more number of elderly customers. As for India, Honda has already said that it will not launch the new Jazz in the country while the City is barely a month away from its much-anticipated launch. The model had its world premiere in Thailand earlier this year and needless to say, it featured physical buttons for the climate control system in place of the touchscreen controls.   

Source - AutoCar